BERLIN – Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of Germany’s second biggest political party who last week called Israel an “apartheid regime,” is slated to meet with the head of Germany’s Jewish community and the new Israeli ambassador.

Gabriel, 52, who will likely run for chancellor in 2013, wrote on his Facebook site Wednesday following a visit to Hebron, “It’s a zone without legal rights for Palestinians. It is an apartheid regime, and there’s no justification for it.”

Dieter Graumann, head of the Jewish community, told the German media that “what Gabriel said is completely screwed up.”

It is morally imbalanced to call for negotiations with Hamas, which openly seeks to destroy Jews worldwide, and at the same time to denigrate Israel as an “apartheid regime,” Graumann said.